New Acres scheme

A solar powered drinking trough is one of the non productive investments.

Was about planting actions...are they considered forestry and then that bit of land has to remain planted beyond the 5 years or lose all payment....or is just length of contract

Was wondering about existing high hedge but with short bits can you coppice short bits but get full length of hedge...what kind of fencing spec (so I could estimate cost), ill have to ask that too...bit of a stinker existing good stuff on the land doesn't get paid.....you'd think they would pay you to fence of existing good stuff etc....benign or even helping hand type action

Nothing in ACRES for new entrants . Any of you guys who spent €thousands on Green Certs and solicitor fees for transfer of farms will have a long time to wait to recoup it through ACRES. Even if you took over the farm late last year you will not be eligible until the next ACRES which will start in 2024. Those representing young farmers must have been asleep

Looking at the webinar, the phrase a pig in a poke came to mind.

They kept going on about commonage and the co-op approach to the point where there was little enough about the general approach.

Ok. Would be great if you are correct. My planner and both inspectors are viewing the ACRES very different to REAP.

No reply maybe we have no commonage. farmers on here

Afraid I cannot understand reply

Yes you are very lucky the way your land is set up.Michael Fitrmaurice is very well up in all things farming. I believe his comment on contract reading was excellent.He said it was short term gain for long term pain. My main problem with commonage. Part of acres is it some people don't stock it and get paid like glass

Putting in a green minister for agriculture would be a calculated risk for FF and FG.

They would likely lose a lot of farmers votes but would they retain enough urban votes in the constituencies outside the cities.

It does look like the aim is to reduce the national herd but by incentivising rather than mandatory cuts. The problem is they've been too ambitious.

If you have less than 50 acres are you really going to plant 100 trees to get in. How much ground will that take up.

Then extensive grazing is poor enough payment but the low input grassland they're going to deduct marks for thistles, nettles and docks.

Being realistic about it to get rid of those will need spray a couple of years running. However the spray will also kill the positive indicators making it harder to improve the score in a 5 year scheme so probably a poor payment unless you don't have any but a lot of the less managed ground in West have them to some degree.

You can't opt to plant hedges next to the neighbour because you only have access on one side. That rules out a lot of where you might consider planting a hedge.

Organics requires a higher degree of management. It makes it a harder sell to the part time farmer initially anyway. Then there's the market for organic produce. Is the market there for a premium product or will your organic beef and lamb be sold the at the same price regardless. I think it's the latter. Would you be bothered unless you were of sufficient scale to make the organic payment worthwhile if there is no increase in value of your produce. Reduced fertiliser costs are less of a factor where you are only spreading a couple of tonnes a year anyway.

On the other hand if you have sufficient scale would you be any better off organic with less output but maybe less cost.

Would organics not require good land as well. Would a lot of average land in the west go to ruin of it went into organics?

Who is the target for that scheme then.

According to the link 43% of farms are less than 20 hectares. The majority of those are in the border Midlands and west (which are more likely to be beef and lamb) where as the south and east have larger farms (where there is more dairy and tillage).

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://assets.gov.ie/88632/eff46189-8124-4072-9526-c49f995833b9.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi1ioS7r576AhXTg1wKHaWhBfQQFnoECEoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1NoosemsCU2iXkFSdzXfnO

Rushes thistles nettles and other sh1te? Land would be ok for a while but once p' and k's start slipping land looses it's power imo and it will take a lot of money to put it right down the road.

it is looking like the best thing for these farms might be to avoid ACRES and organic at that scale/size and if you made a good loss on farm and get tax from the day job wouldn’t it be as good any scheme (for 2 years anyway 😅)

The area is farmed by farmers though. If you want to get another 5% of land into organic farming you need to target the farmers farming that land.